Plateau State imposes curfew on Jos as irate Ipob members burn down police station in Aba

PLATEAU State government has imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on the capital Jos following a heightening of tension in Abia State after irate youths burnt down the Ariaria Police Station in Aba.

 

Over the last week, Nigeria has been very tense following several clashes between the army and Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) supporters in Umuahia, the Abia State capital. Incensed by what they see as an attempt to arrest their leader Nnamdi Kanu, Ipob members took the streets of Aba yesterday and burnt down the police station.

 

Only yesterday, the federal government ordered the withdrawal of troops from major towns in Abia State, which have been under siege since Saturday when the Nigerian Army began its Operation Python Dance. Geoffrey Ogbonna, a spokesman for the Abia State Police Command, confirmed the burning down of the police station, adding that the arsonists also injured a policeman.

 

Aside from  the Aba incident, the irate mob made for the residence of the state police commissioner Adeleye Oyebade in Umuahia but were repelled by some policemen at the residence, who fired tear gas canisters to disperse the surging crowd. Mr Oyebade, who was replaced as the state’s police boss yesterday, said the agitators did not gain entrance into the compound.

 

Mr Ogbonna, said: “Ariaria police station in Aba was burnt down and the people that did this, we are suspecting are Ipob hoodlums. They came in their numbers, besieged the station and one of our policemen was beaten up but glory be to God, we did not lose the officer’s life.”

 

He added that the police did not respond in kind to the attack in order to avoid recording casualties. Anthony Ogbizi, the new Abia State police commissioner, has reassured residents of the command’s resolve to protect their lives and property.

 

However, in a further escalating of the crisis, three persons were shot by security operatives on Aka Library Avenue yesterday morning in Umuahia. Apparently,  the victims were shot close to the Diamond Bank near the Abia State Government House gate.

 

Eyewitnesses said that two of the three persons shot died instantly while the third was fatally injured and some soldiers took the corpses and the injured person away in their truck. The incident created panic among residents as shop owners hurriedly locked their shops while most streets in the area were deserted.

 

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State said that soldiers would be withdrawn from the streets of Umuahia, the state capital and Aba, its commercial nerve centre today.  He said the situation in the past few days, which led to the deployment of soldiers ahead of  Operation Python Dance II, had generated great concern to both the government and the people.

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